Mar. 7, 2013

Rep. Sherry Jones, right / Jae S. Lee / File / The Tennessean

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The Tennessean

Sen. Jim Summerville / George Walker IV / File / The Tennessean

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The Department of Children’s Services released grim new details Wednesday about the deaths of children in state custody in a 113-page response to pointed questions by Democratic lawmakers in advance of hearings at the state legislature next week.

Interim DCS Commissioner Jim Henry and other top DCS officials are expected to answer directly to lawmakers next week in separate hearings Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

In advance, the House Democratic Caucus asked DCS to answer wide-ranging questions about the agency’s ability to serve the state’s children, data problems, rumored difficulties about DCS staff cooperating with law enforcement and unanswered calls at its child abuse hotline.

Lawmakers also asked for an accurate accounting of child fatalities — a sore point for the agency, which has been inconsistent in reporting the deaths of children in its care. That and a series of other missteps by DCS ultimately led to the resignation last month of DCS chief Kate O’Day.

Among its responses to lawmakers, DCS noted:

• Of the 25 children who died in state custody in 2011 and 2012, 16 died in foster homes, one died in a DCS detention facility and one youth died in a county lockup. Five children died in a hospital, one died on a trial visit home with family and one was a runaway at the time of his or her death.

• In 2012, one child died after DCS decided initial reports of abuse or neglect did not merit an investigation. In 2011, two children died after DCS had dismissed reports of abuse against them. The state had received reports of abuse at least three times involving one of those two children who later died.

• Three of the children who died in state custody died as a direct result of abuse or neglect in 2012. In 2011, the number was two.

“I’m glad, of course, to get any information we can about the fatalities of children,” said state Rep. Sherry Jones, a vocal critic of the agency’s handling of child fatalities in recent months. “But what we really need to look at is why did this happen, what did we not do, where could we have done something differently, because we don’t want any more children to die who came into contact with DCS; that shouldn’t happen.”

The report does not provide those answers. And while DCS provided lengthy responses to many of the lawmakers’ questions, some questions on child deaths and critical injuries yielded brief or incomplete responses.

While confirming to lawmakers the 25 deaths of children in state custody in the past two years, the report leaves out the larger number of children who died after being investigated for abuse or neglect but who were not taken from their homes into custody.

The report notes it is unable to provide lawmakers with the number of near fatalities as requested — children who suffered life-threatening injuries after having some contact with the $650 million state agency.

Replies incomplete

Some of DCS’ answers are briefer than the questions.

Lawmakers asked DCS “was information related to the deaths or mistreatment of children in the care, custody, or control of DCS made available to Governor Haslam’s Administration before, during, or in response to the “Top to Bottom Review” process? If not, when and what information was made available to the Governor?”

The “top to bottom review” was ordered by Gov. Bill Haslam of all departments when he took office in early 2011.

DCS did not fully answer that question, instead DCS simply responded this way: “Some information was compiled and presented by Commissioner O’Day to Governor Haslam’s Administration sometime during late September or early October 2012, which was after the Top to Bottom Review.”

In response to lawmakers’ request that DCS provide a graph of deaths and injury to children over the past ten years, DCS provided numbers that revealed a “significant decline” since 2008 of deaths of children “determined to be due to maltreatment.”

The response does not include the years before 2007, the number of total deaths of children in DCS custody or who had prior contact with the agency or the number of those deaths that were for undetermined causes.

Abuse is concern

The report arrived in lawmakers’ in-boxes at the end of the day Wednesday and Sen. Jim Summerville, a Dickson Republican, said his preliminary review of the report detailing DCS call center numbers, intake procedures, training for staff and other information was encouraging — revealing the breadth of DCS’ work.

“Although these numbers are too high — any child’s untimely death diminishes us — it does not appear that DCS was inattentive to youngsters at risk of dying,” Summerville said.

That said, Summerville noted the data provided pointed to a clear need to address how DCS responds to initial reports of child abuse.

More than a third of the calls to DCS’ child abuse hotline are screened out without an investigation, and on average 18 percent of all calls were abandoned before improvements in the technology began lowering the rate in November and December to about 4.5 percent calls dropped.

“These data make clear that Commissioner Henry must review the central intake approach, including classification of cases and screen outs.”

Henry and other top DCS officials are expected to testify before the House Government Operations Committee on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Senate health committee is expected to question Henry about the agency’s budget and the progress he has made since stepping into the temporary position on Feb. 5. On March 14, DCS budget hearings are scheduled in the House Finance, Ways and Means Committee.